[Xmca-l] Re: Eighth Grade Reading and Paradise Lost

[Martin Packer]

So what is your proposal, David? I tried reading your message vertically, then backwards, and still found myself lost.

Martin


> On Jun 10, 2020, at 8:09 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Anthony--
> 
> I have a compromise for you. You are finding it hard to quit the "My Hometown Minneapolis" thread, and you are, will-he nil-he, doing exactly what you once condemned Ulvi for doing (posting links instead of thoughts).
> 
> Here's what I propose. The other day I was teaching READING. No, they weren't eighth graders--they were Korean undergraduates, and I was teaching Milton's Paradise Lost. Needless to say, the kids were finding it tough going.
> 
> I think I know why. If you take eighth graders WRITING poetry, a sentence usually maps onto a single prosodic line. For want of data (you really could help out here, you know), I give you:
> 
> Roses are red.
> Violets are blue.
> Sugar is sweet.
> . ....
> 
> Each line is a sentence, a simple major clause: subject, verb, object. Milton doesn't do that: his first sentence ("Of man's disobedience...") is sixteen lines long. So he  completely decouples the line from the clause.
> 
> Or does he? Milton loves acrostics (which is even more amazing when you realize he's stone blind when he's writing this stuff)--according to Melanie Phaal (not, I am almost sure, her real name), you find stuff like this:
> 
> ;;;who rather double honour gain
> From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
> Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
> And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
> Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
> Let us not then suspect our happy state
> Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
> As not secure to single or combined.
> Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
> 
> Get it? You don't read it horizontally. You read it vertically, like a Korean pub sign: FFAALL  (and "FALL" if you read it from the bottom up. Double honor gained indeed....
> 
> That got me thinking. Alot of Paradise Lost becomes easier when you realie that it's syntax is vertical, like a Korean or a Chinese crossword. Milton puts  the subject in one line, the verb in the next, and the object in the last.  
> 
> No light, but rather darkness visible
> Served only to discover sights of woe
> Regions of sorrow, doleful shades...
>  
> The problem is that when I teach this technique, I find that the kids ignore it. A few years ago, there was a serious attempt to teach reading as AUTONOMY--people like R.R. Day and Julian Bamford (influenced by Stephen Krashen) wanted most reading to take place outside class, "extensively". But this never really caught on, partly because we don't really know what techniques to teach (besides "skimming and scanning", i.e. reading minus comprehension). As usual, though, we tend to blame our own ignorance on the kids (as I did in the first sentence of this paragraph). 
> 
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
> 
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!SN4OoAUCGhSoJ1FuJq7SOWjk3M_GKX-ZRc8yJPNyrHxOTD28UICGfQg2zJ3gAh4gYOboVw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!XivomlsMRmzsPNhtZ107JW5GufxDQl52tecyALUtAf6cPg3yuDGwm0SsEv91-tvMsEeyJQ$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!SN4OoAUCGhSoJ1FuJq7SOWjk3M_GKX-ZRc8yJPNyrHxOTD28UICGfQg2zJ3gAh5aMpQPLg$ 
>  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!XivomlsMRmzsPNhtZ107JW5GufxDQl52tecyALUtAf6cPg3yuDGwm0SsEv91-tuGXBvkMg$>
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